Charles Churchill Poems

Charles ChurchillCharles ChurchillCharles Churchill (February, 1731 - November 4, 1764), was an
English poet and satirist.
Churchill was born in Vine Street, Westminster. His father, rector of Rainham,
Essex, held the curacy and lectureship of St Johns, Westminster, from 1733, and
Charles was educated at Westminster School, where he became a good classical
scholar, and formed a close and lasting friendship with Robert Lloyd. He entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1749, having been refused at Oxford, possibly
because of a hasty marriage which he had contracted within the rules of the
Fleet in his eighteenth year. He never lived at Cambridge; the young couple
lived in his father's house, and Churchill was afterwards sent to the north of
England to prepare for holy orders. He became curate of South Cadbury, Somerset,
and, on receiving priest's orders (1756), began to act as his fathers curate at
Rainham. Two years later the elder Churchill died, and the son was elected to
succeed him in his curacy and lectureship. His emoluments amounted to less than
£100 a year, and he increased his income by teaching in a girls' school. His
marriage proved unhappy, and he began to spend much of his time in dissipation
in the society of Robert Lloyd. He was separated from his wife in 1761, and
would have been imprisoned for debt but for the timely help of Lloyd's father,
who had been an usher and was now a master at Westminster.